Crown Immunity

April 10, 1986

TORONTO — Prime Minister Brian Mulroney won't be receiving a subpoena in a scandal involving his ex-defense minister. A judge refused to allow Mulroney to be brought into pretrial hearings involving Robert Coates' libel suit. Coates resigned in February 1985 after the Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported he visited a strip club in Lahr, West Germany, and chatted with a stripper during an official tour of NATO military bases in November 1984. Justice Marvin Catzman of the Supreme Court of Ontario did agree to summonses for 10 others, including Mulroney's press aide Bill Fox. The summonses for pretrial hearing testimony were sought by the Ottawa Citizen. Lawyers for Mulroney argued he has Crown immunity from being called. Newspaper lawyers said that's stretching the intent of the immunity, designed for the British monarch.